Anyone else missing Stafford in Detroit

I know Detroit has more than just injury problems, but I just have to say at least Stafford makes us somewhat exciting. Or he takes chances. Linehan might be a problem, but I just want Stafford back as of now.

This year is a new form of misery for Lions fans. Instead of being the laughing stock that has no chance, they're clearly an improved team, but with no wins to show for it. The Lions weren't going to the playoffs anyway, this was another season of learning for Stafford and company, now Stafford is doing his learning from the sidelines. No one ever said life as a Lions fan was easy.

On the plus side, if I were putting together a list of the most exciting young (very young) triplets, Stafford, Johnson and Best would be very high on that list.

Stafford's shoulder injury was two-fold. Peppers got him in an arm bar (classic martial arts/wrestling hold) which probably in itself would have been enough to cause a mild sprain (as in: he'll beout 2-3 weeks). Then, to add insult to injury, Peppers continued the play by maintaining the arm bar and driving Stafford to the ground shoulder first.

When I saw the replay, I thought "Out for the season with a torn labrum & rotator cup. Surgery this Wednesday." I am amazed Stafford only suffered a sprain and not a dislocation. That was a wicked hit by one of the best pass rushers in the game.

I know how much better we would be with him in the games. We would have to rely less on Best (and maybe he does not sustain that toe injury). But I want Stafford's shoulder to be at 100% before he comes back on the field.

Let's also hope that the Lions finally realize that Jeff Backus is a good but not great left tackle. We have needed to move him to right tackle and draft a stud LT for a few years now (Joe Thomas instead of Megatron leaps off the page for me). Backus is solid and very durable. But he cannot block the Jared Allens and Julius Peppers of the game. We face those two four times a year and need better personnel to stop them.

I think they went with a heavy dose of AP because A) They needed to take some pressure off Favre since the Vikes have a soft O-Line and he keeps taking hit after hit, and B) Favre has NO confidence in his receivers. He hasn't really worked with them and he's regressed compared to this time last season.

The Packers have a tendency to overlook their opponents, so you have an excellent shot at beating us, though for obvious reasons I hope that doesn't happen. =)

Yeah, not sure what's up with the scheduling there. I noticed when the schedules came out that Minnesota has the majority of their end of season games schedules for either home or in a dome. It felt like a bit of Favre favoritism to me.

I'm from Cincinnati and I watched the Bengals finish strong 4 years in a row before it clicked for them. I feeling optimistic about the end of the season for the Lions. I think they have some good players spread out enough where somethings might start clicking in the end.

I think that Stafford could have finished off the Bears and made the comeback against Eagles. The vanilla offense we run with Shaun Hill is hard to watch. I just want them to open it up with Stafford when he comes back.